We won't take it lying down, says Karunanidhi

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JUNE 27. The DMK president, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, today said his party would not take lying down the AIADMK Government foisting one case after another on his partymen and those of other Opposition, even as he condemned the arrest last night of the former Minister, Mr. K. Ponmudi, at Villupuram.

``Everything has its limits and we are running out of patience,'' Mr. Karunanidhi said, responding to reporters' queries how the DMK proposed to respond politically to the string of cases registered against their partymen and those of its allies.

Hinting that there could be a `political motive' in the arrest of Mr. Ponmudi, the DMK leader said the charges were utterly flimsy and `made-up', considering that the MLA, as representative of the Villupuram constituency, had only visited the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation godown to ascertain the facts about `rotten rice stock-claims' made by some Ministers.

As 324 tonnes of `rotten rice' was claimed to be stored at Villupuram, Mr. Ponmudi along with a group of local journalists visited the godown, said Mr. Karunanidhi. Permission was obtained from the quality control inspector before Mr. Ponmudi inspected some of the bags purportedly containing the `rotten rice'.

Picking up some samples from those bags, Mr. Ponmudi asked the media personnel to see for themselves the quality of the rice stored. The scribes found that the quality was ``good''. This was also widely reported in the media, Mr. Karunanidhi said, adding, an ``MLA trying to do his duty has now been hauled up for trespass''.

Asking whether the Jayalalithaa Government would proceed against the journalists also for the ``trespass'' into the TNCSC godown, Mr. Karunanidhi said what Mr. Ponmudi did was no different from the recent act of the independent MLA, Mr. Appavu, who had taken a group of reporters to the Kalakad forest area in Tirunelveli district, to ``explain'' certain facts following allegations of teak tree felling.

`Contradictory' claims

Mr. Karunanidhi also pointed out how the Chief Minister and the Food Minister, Mr. P. Dhanapal, were unwittingly `contradicting' themselves on the `rotten rice' issue. Though Ms. Jayalalithaa first said 65,000 tonnes of rice held by the TNCSC was `non- issuable', of which 45,000 tonnes was the TKM-9 variety, Mr. Dhanapal later said that only 33,000 tonnes was of that variety.

Meanwhile, the quantity of non-issuable rice was suddenly placed considerably higher at 1.25 lakh tonnes. ``If you deduct from it 33,000 tonnes of the TKM-9 variety, the quantity of `non-issuable rice' even as per the Government's new claim should be around 92,000 tonnes, said Mr. Karunanidhi.

Yet the Minister again went on record, in a statement last night, that the quantity of non-issuable rice was 1.25 lakh tonnes, Mr. Karunanidhi said, adding, ``they seem to be conveniently forgetting these contradictory figures.''

In fact, the AIADMK Government should be ``thankful'' to the DMK for having left behind rice stocks of about 5 lakh tonnes, besides 19 lakh tonnes of paddy. This was not the case ``when we took over the reins in 1996'', argued Mr. Karunanidhi.

On the frequent Cabinet shuffle within just 45 days of Ms. Jayalalithaa coming back to power and the continuing shake-up in the bureaucracy, Mr. Karunanidhi agreed with the perception that they reflected an ``instability in the new Government.''

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